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About the Authors 
 

Kayla Castellitto conducted this study as a part of her George H. Cook Honors 

Thesis research, while she was an undergraduate student at Rutgers, The State 

University of New Jersey, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. During 

her senior year at Rutgers, she served as the Vice President of the Rutgers 

(Omicron Beta Alpha) Chapter of Kappa Omicron Nu (KON) Honor Society and 

coordinated the other KON student members’ assistance in the study. Upon her 

graduation in Spring 2018, she completed her Dietetic Internship at Rutgers 

University, School of Health Professions. After completion of more than 1200 

hours of supervised practice in the clinical and community settings, she 

successfully passed the Commission on Dietetic Registration exam and became a Registered Dietitian 

Nutritionist (RDN). Kayla Castellitto is currently a clinical dietitian at Robert Wood Johnson University 

Hospital in New Brunswick.  

 

Dr. Nurgul Fitzgerald, PhD, RDN, is an Associate Professor / Extension Specialist 

at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Rutgers University. Dr. Fitzgerald 

served as the faculty advisor to Kayla Castellitto for her G. H. Cook Honors thesis 

research and to the KON Honor Society students, who were involved in this study. 

Dr. Fitzgerald’s research focuses on cultural, socioeconomic, and environmental 

effects on food access and intake patterns, and community-based interventions 

for health promotion and type 2 diabetes prevention especially in low-income or 

minority populations.  

 

 

Amanpreet Kaur graduated from the School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program 

at Rutgers University in January 2020. Having majored in Biological Sciences, she 

plans on attending medical school. In her junior year, she studied abroad in 

London, and she remains an avid member of the Rutgers Global community. In 

her spare time, she enjoys volunteering with elderly and terminally ill patients, 

travelling, and drawing. In Spring 2018, Amanpreet’s interest in the genetics and 

biology underlying diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s led her to join Dr. 

Rongo’s lab in the Waksman Institute. She subsequently completed her research 

on the role of eicosanoids in regulating the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) for 

credit.  

 

Anusha Patil is a senior at the School of Arts and Sciences, majoring in Cell 

Biology and Neuroscience with minors in Psychology and Health & Society. In high 

school, Anusha volunteered in a Brain Trauma Unit at a local hospital. Here, she 

interacted with patients who all suffered brain injury yet exhibited varying levels 

of ability. She was inspired by the resilience these patients demonstrated on their 

neurorehabilitation journey, and hearing their lived experiences drove her to 

conduct research in neurotrauma. This research project unites her prior research 

experiences studying spinal cord injury at the W.M. Keck Center and epigenetics 



Aresty Undergraduate Research Journal at Rutgers University, vol. 1, issue 1, Spring 2020 

 

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at CLEF Laboratory. Anusha hopes to pursue a career in medicine, where she can continue to focus on 

conducting translational research. 

 

Yelizaveta Rassadkina graduated from Rutgers University with honors in the 

spring of 2019 with a B.S. in microbiology. This opportunity has inspired her to 

continue doing research and apply to graduate school to get a Ph.D. in 

microbiology. While at Rutgers, she did her undergraduate research under her 

professor, Dr. Barkay, who studies the microbial transformations of metals in the 

environment. Yelizaveta joined her lab during her junior year and continued to 

work there until she graduated. During her time she worked on a project with 

samples from hot springs in Yellowstone National Park. Lots of microorganisms 

live in harsh environments that contain many toxic metals, such as mercury, and 

they have developed strategies to overcome the toxicity. Her research project included characterizing the 

microbial community that was present in such extreme environments and then using that information to 

identify the ways microorganisms are able to resist mercury thus allowing them to grow where most living 

organisms would not be able to. 

 

Ryan Rodriguez is a rising junior at Rutgers University, currently pursuing a major 

in English and a minor in Education. Taking a break from the likes of Milton, 

Dickens, Cavendish, and Eliot, and after spending two semesters as an intern at 

the Plangere Writing Center on campus, Ryan has gained substantial interest in 

measures educators can implement in restructuring pedagogy that offer a more 

student-driven approach. Originally an assignment given in his internship class, 

the research he explores soon expanded into a study of how learning 

environments that stand adjacent to the classroom may provide more desirable 

spaces conducive to learning than traditional ones, and as a student himself—

learning of and understanding the struggles new students face as they transition to the college setting—

wanted to present an actualized alternative route to teaching that empowered the party it most affects.  

 

Adriana Scanteianu is a rising fourth year student in the Honors College and a 

member of the Douglass Residential College studying Mathematics with a minor in 

Urban Studies. She is a Rutgers Presidential Scholar, a Lloyd C. Gardner Fellow, 

and a recipient of the Katherine Hazard Prize in Mathematics. Adriana has also 

been recently accepted into the 3+1+1 program at the Bloustein School, which 

culminates in a Master of Public Policy. Adriana’s research experience began in 

high school when she conducted and published computational biology research at 

the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. As a Rutgers student, she traveled to 

Rwanda under the Western Washington University NSF REU program to study 

Rwanda’s family planning system from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Last summer, 

Adriana began conducting research in quantum mechanics through the Rutgers DIMACS NSF REU program 

under Prof. Shadi Tahvildar-Zadeh, alongside Rutgers student Xiangyue Wang. This research continued 

throughout the academic year and was accepted for presentation at a Contributed Paper Session at the 

American Mathematical Society Spring Eastern Sectional Meeting. Adriana and Xiangyue have continued to 

work on their research remotely and will be working with a new Rutgers DIMACS REU cohort this summer. 

 



Aresty Undergraduate Research Journal at Rutgers University, vol. 1, issue 1, Spring 2020 

 

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Prachi Srivastava is a senior in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers 

University-New Brunswick. She is majoring in Biological Sciences and Psychology 

with minors in Music and Health & Society. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, 

volunteering, biking, and musicking.  

 

Prachi’s interest in the intersection of neuroscience and psychology led her to join 

Dr. Benjamin Samuels’ behavioral neuroscience lab in her freshman year. During 

her time with the lab, she has given two poster presentations, been granted the 

Cooper SURF award, and contributed to two published manuscripts. Her hope is to 

continue working in neuroscience research with a focus in neurodegenerative diseases. 

 

 Xiangyue Wang is a rising senior in the Honors Program studying Physics, 

Mathematics, and Philosophy. He strives to find innovative and equitable solutions 

to climate change. He is a Rutgers Scarlet Scholar, an Anthony D. Kurtz Scholar, 

and a recipient of the NJ Chinese Chamber of Commerce Special Recognition 

Award. Furthermore, he represents more than 30,000 undergraduate students in 

the Rutgers Senate. Xiangyue’s effort to combat climate change began in high 

school when he was selected by the AT&T Young Science Achievers’ Program to 

research the impact of ocean acidification on phytoplankton. Later, he searched 

for sustainable and reusable concrete in the NJIT Material Dynamics Lab. At 

Rutgers, Xiangyue uses physics-based machine learning models to improve wind energy efficiency under 

Prof. Ahmed Aziz Ezzat. Xiangyue began conducting research in quantum mechanics through the Rutgers 

DIMACS NSF REU program under Prof. Shadi Tahvildar-Zadeh, alongside Rutgers student Adriana 

Scanteianu. This research continued throughout the academic year and was accepted for presentation at a 

Contributed Paper Session at the American Mathematical Society Spring Eastern Sectional Meeting. 

Xiangyue and Adriana have continued to work on their research remotely and will be working with a new 

Rutgers DIMACS REU cohort this summer.  

 

 

 

 

 


